Eating Well; A Tailor-Made Diet That's Working

By Marian Burros

Published: April 8, 1998

I HAD a diet epiphany in February. It had been decades in coming.

I've been dieting since I was 13. I tried the cottage cheese diet, the grapefruit diet, diet pills (in the early days) and some beastly tasting homemade formula that used evaporated milk. Later came drinking shakes for breakfast and lunch and eating a small dinner, eating lots of protein and no carbohydrates and, finally, lots of carbohydrates and very little fat.

Absolutely everything worked -- for a little while.

I would lose weight. And then I would get hungry and return to my regular practices -- not necessarily eating fattening food, but eating far too much of whatever I ate.

Over the last two years, while I was working on a new cookbook, I put on weight once again. In the past, weight gains had affected just my clothing size. This time it affected an arthritic knee and my blood pressure. So not only did I hate the way I looked, I could not walk to work and my doctor had threatened me with blood-pressure drugs.

So off I went to the Golden Door spa in California, where I had been many times before, to get a jump start. This time, I met with the nutritionist, Deborah Cole, and explained why I thought I ate too much: I was bored with my food and I got hungry between meals -- the main reasons most people go off diets. I was willing to try anything to stop this.

By the second day at the spa, my knee was much better. Each day, my blood pressure came down and by the end of the week it was normal. All, perhaps, the result of exercise, a lower-carbohydrate diet and low salt intake. Maybe less stress. I was psyched.

But when Ms. Cole suggested a diet based on one used by diabetics, I flinched. There are no indications that I have any problem with insulin.

My problem has always been taking in more calories than I expend. I thought that by eating lots of carbohydrates, most of them complex, like fruits and vegetables and whole grains, I could fill myself up and not be hungry. But I was wrong. I was still hungry and thus ate well beyond the 1,500 calories someone my age and build should eat each day.

After asking me what I ate and when I got hungry, Ms. Cole told me to increase the protein in my diet a little, to keep eating plenty of grains, fruits and vegetables but to drastically reduce the consumption of refined carbohydrates like pasta and white bread.

She also wanted me to watch out for some fruits and vegetables that have a lot of sugar or that turn their starch to sugar quickly. These include white potatoes, corn, winter squash, parsnips, lima beans, carrots, beets, bananas, dates, figs, mangoes, papayas, prunes and raisins.

Ms. Cole believed that I was getting hungry between meals because my blood sugar would spike from the large quantitites of carbohydrates I was eating, and then plummet. Those valleys brought on the hunger. Eating a little more protein would help keep my blood sugar on an even keel.

She laid out an eating program that allowed for snacks twice a day, once in the afternoon and once at night.

This is a typical day's plan:

* Breakfast: A piece of whole-grain bread, 1/2 cup of low-fat cottage cheese and an apple; or whole-grain cereal like shredded wheat with low-fat milk and fruit.

* Lunch: Tuna salad sandwich made with low-fat mayonnaise, onions, celery and relish on whole-wheat bread with lettuce and tomato; or a salad of cooked broccoli and snow peas, roasted peppers, a few strips of turkey or chicken and a sprinkling of corn with a slice of whole-grain bread.

* Snack: One cup nonfat plain yogurt and a piece of fruit.

* Dinner: Small portion of chicken, fish or pork tenderloin in combination with brown rice and vegetables dressed with herbs and oil and vinegar; or shrimp jambalaya; or chicken chili; or spicy eggplant with tomato basil sauce over whole-wheat pasta. Side dishes of vegetables or salad. For dessert, poached fruit or 1/2 cup sorbet or a biscotto.

* Snack: Fruit and yogurt or cottage cheese; or yogurt and a bit of jam or honey.

I'm not in the clear yet, but I'm down one dress size and I'm not hungry and I'm not bored with what I am eating. I still cheat, and I know that if you put a piece of fabulous dessert in front of me I will eat it all. So one component of this diet -- of all diets -- is to keep out of harm's way.

I can't say for sure why this diet works for me: perhaps the addition of protein did the trick. Dr. Wayne Calloway, an obesity specialist who teaches at George Washington University, said that eating fewer carbohydrates lessens fluid retention, and that could be enough to explain the reduction in my blood pressure and the lessening of my arthritis pain, made worse by fluid on the knee.

Some might argue that my weight loss was just fluid, too. But too much time has passed and too many additional pounds have come off for the weight loss to be just temporary.

As effective as this diet is for me, it may not work for everyone. Dr. Calloway emphasized that diets need to be tailor made. ''One size does not fit all,'' he said. ''As we learn more, that's the key point.''

No matter what the diet, two constants about weight loss remain the same. ''Total calories do count,'' he said. ''People either eat too much or exercise too little.''

WHITE CHILI AND CHICKEN

Time: 20 minutes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 2/3 cups chopped onion

1 large clove garlic

1 Serrano or jalapeno pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or more to taste

8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast

1 15-ounce can no-salt-added white navy beans

1/2 cup beer

A few shakes salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

A few sprigs cilantro to yield 2 tablespoons chopped

1 ounce Monterey Jack cheese ( 1/3 cup).

1. Heat a nonstick pot large enough to hold all the ingredients until it is very hot. Add the oil, and reduce the heat to medium high. Saute the onion until it begins to color.

2. Meanwhile, mince the garlic; wash, trim, seed and mince 1/2 of the chili pepper, more if desired.

3. When onions have turned golden, add the garlic and chili and cook for 30 seconds. Reduce heat, and stir in the cumin, oregano and cayenne. Remove from heat.

4. Wash and dry the chicken, and cut in 1/4-inch strips. Return pan to the heat, at medium, and stir in the chicken, browning on both sides.

5. Meanwhile, rinse and drain the beans. Add the beans, beer, salt and pepper to the pan and cook briefly over high heat, stirring occasionally until flavors are well-blended and liquid has begun to evaporate.

6. Wash, dry and chop cilantro. Grate the cheese. Sprinkle both over the chili. Serve with a Thai salad of coarsely grated cucumbers and carrots with finely chopped red onion, rice vinegar and sugar.